* Pritzker said the same thing during my interview last week…

During a June 30 interview with Capitol News Illinois, Pritzker suggested one response [to the influx of people seeking abortions] might be to expand segments of the state’s health care workforce to take on greater demand.

“Again, this is about securing access, making sure we have capacity to handle the needs of people to get procedures,” he said. “We need hospital personnel, health care personnel. Other states, for example, allow certain kinds of professionals to perform these procedures that Illinois doesn’t allow. So we’re going to look at expanding who can do the procedures.”

During that interview, Pritzker also said the state would not consider providing aid for out-of-state travel to Illinois for abortions.

* Financial Times…

“On an average day, we were seeing about 250 calls. Now it’s upwards of 500,” said Melissa Grant, chief operations officer of Carafem, which runs an abortion clinic in the Chicago suburb of Skokie. “We’re already seeing more Wisconsin patients.”

Generally, about 20 per cent of Carafem’s patients come from out of state, though that number increased to 30 per cent last month and is expected to jump further.

Many abortion providers believe the increase in demand is only the beginning, as women become more aware of the options available to them and further state bans elsewhere begin to take effect. There is “a lot of confusion” among patients over what is legal in their states, said Michelle K. […]

Northwestern Medicine, the hospital system of Northwestern University that offers abortion services through its family planning centre, said it would take a similar approach to reallocating resources as it did during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, should patient volumes increase.

* Wisconsin…

Most Saturday mornings Abby is at work or walking in nature somewhere. But on July 2, the 30-year-old is waiting at her house to be picked up by an acquaintance who will drive her more than two hours to a clinic in Illinois to obtain a medication abortion to end her pregnancy.

Even two weeks ago, Abby — who allowed a reporter to travel with her to Illinois and share her story but requested that her real name not be used — could have obtained what is commonly referred to as the “abortion pill” at the Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin clinic in Madison, where she lives. But when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its June 24 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning the constitutional right to an abortion that has existed since 1973, Planned Parenthood clinics immediately stopped offering both surgical and medication abortion due to Wisconsin’s 1849 criminal abortion ban, which is still on the books.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has since filed suit in Dane County Circuit Court to block the 173-year-old statute. But Wisconsin women seeking abortion must currently go to Illinois or Minnesota or one of the other states in the nation where abortion remains legal and accessible. […]

Abby says she spent about four hours that day calling clinics in Illinois, but could not get through or was put on hold — up to two hours at one clinic. She started to feel a bit panicked but then her boyfriend got through immediately to a clinic in the Chicago area. He handed the phone to Abby and within a few minutes she had an appointment for Saturday.

* Rockford…

With expectations that women from Wisconsin will come to Illinois to have an abortion, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v Wade, an abortion clinic is set to open in Rockford soon.

Abortion is now illegal in Wisconsin and surrounding states. Gov. JB Pritzker has declared Illinois is a pro-choice state, causing patients from neighboring states to come into Illinois for an abortion.
President Biden discusses abortion options with Democrat governors

On Friday, the Rockford Family Initiative held a protest outside a former acupuncture facility, at 611 Auburn Street.

The building was purchased by Dr. Dennis Christensen and is expected to reopen as an abortion clinic as soon as next week.

* Meanwhile…

Lobbyists pressuring Congress on telehealth issues are staying away from abortion matters because they don’t want to jeopardize their chances of extending the pandemic-related rules that have been a boon to the sector, several of them told POLITICO.

The industry consultants and advocates are continuing their approach — even after the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade — because they don’t want to derail their congressional legislative goals to expand access to virtual care or weaken a coalition they’ve built over the last two years.

Eased as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the telehealth rules are widely popular and wouldn’t involve abortion care as a vast majority apply to the Medicare program. But advocates fear that abortion politics could find a way into their negotiations to extend the relaxed rules that are tied to the public health emergency — which could end as early as October, though the Biden administration is likely to extend it beyond that date.

“The telehealth industry and telehealth advocates want to maintain our bipartisan support, and this obviously complicates that,” one advocate for the telehealth industry said of the Roe decision. “We, as an industry, are just trying to make as many gains as we can, however we can, while maintaining that bipartisan support and bipartisan credibility.”

* More…

* Inside an Absolutely Slammed Abortion Clinic in a Blue State: As of the Thursday after the decision, anyone who wanted a surgical abortion, which Hope performs up until nearly 24 weeks of pregnancy, would have to wait about two weeks. The clinic was also booked out for three weeks for medication abortions, which Hope will induce, using pills, up until 11 weeks of pregnancy.

* Latino Voices Conversation: Future of Abortion Rights in Illinois and Across the Country